Standardized testing: how students really feel
Sara Stewart shows her personal ACT study requirements. She has it all- flashcards, prep book and courses.
For years there has been constant discourse about standardized testing and if it’s a fair way to evaluate students. While it gives insight to students’ intelligence, many argue it isn’t an even playing field.
In the past, various colleges have discussed making testing optional but this process accelerated recently. The pandemic of 2020 brought many changes to students learning, one being the countrywide cancellation of standardized testing for months.
Due to this unforeseen change, many colleges changed to being test optional. Some schools took this even further, specifically University of California schools who declared they were test blind and wouldn’t consider submitted scores.
Many seniors had been prepping and planning on these tests to help them not only get into college but also help pay for it with scholarships.
Maddy DuQuette, one of Wilsonville’s hardest workers, shared her experiences from the year. DuQuette started ACT tutoring early February prepping for an April test date. Due to the cancellation, she had to stretch her tutoring into September. “All my schools are test optional, not test blind, I feel pressured to still need an outstanding score,” DuQuette explained as to why she kept the tutoring.
Senior Kate Jeffries had trialing experiences getting test scores.
I’ve now had 6 tests cancelled and just last week I drove 5 hours to get to an open test date.
— Kate Jeffries
She feels that this year all schools should be test blind. Being test optional makes students feel they need a score and not all students have a way to go out of state if needed.
The consensus from students is that colleges should be test blind-especially this year. 2020 has had enough problems without students having to worry about then finding a place that will let them take an unfair stressful 3-hour test.
